Solid fuel heater

seagypsywoman

seagypsywoman

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Greece
www.theionian.com
Does anyone have experience with the Newport-Dickinson or any other solid fuel heater? I'm thining ofinstalling one on my 32 foot sailboat but most people I talk to say I should go for the diesel one. I want one that will work while at anchor and while sailing and I like the simplicity and ambiance (I'm a hopeless romantic) of the solid fuel. I know diesel ones are more practical but if I wanted to be practical I'd be living on land and doing the 9-5. Thanks.
Barbara

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I live on a dutch barge, and have a solid-fuel heater. It is great, buuuut. The fuel and associated bits take up a lot of room.

To work well, it really needs a tall chimney - mine is (counting from top of stove) 4.5 metres. (bit of a problem when sailing!)

The soot would really spoil sails.

I haven't experience of them, but my step-father-in-law used to have a Bengco charcoal heater, and reckoned it was great.

I'm about to fit a Taylor diesel as an addition to the solid fuel heater. This only needs a very short flue above the cabin top.

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I fitted a Pascal Atkey Pansy charcoal stove in my last boat, and I am planning to fit a Bengco charcoal heater in my Albin Vega this winter. The Pansy really made a difference on cold, dreich days. It also kept alight all night, and Bengco told me yesterday that their heater does too.

The plus side of charcoal is that it gives a good dry heat, burns away to a very small amount of fine ash, and is light in weight. There is no smoke, soot or sparks, and downwind it just smells like a barbecue in the distance. The fuel is readily available in the summer.

The downside is that, because charcoal is sold mostly for barbecues, supermarkets and garages stop stocking it in winter, just when you need it if you are a liveaboard. You would have to plan to buy a bulk load in the previous summer, unless you can locate a winter supplier.

A solid fuel stove such as the Faversham, sold by Colin Frake, might be a better bet for over-winter use, since you could burn coal, driftwood or whatever. If you look to the people who sell chandlery for canal narrow boats, you should get a wide range of models on offer.

Annie Hill in her books says that diesel heaters are dirty, and they also had one gum up and start leaking burning diesel the first time they used it after a long period in the tropics. If I was going for a diesel heater, I would look at the Reflex that the Hills used, because it needs no electricity, and you can buy one with a hotplate to keep the kettle going. If you read her story you should be able to prevent the accident by keeping the burner and feed pipes clean.

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I looked at them for my (small) cabin in a 29ft. Only the Pascal and the Bengco were small enough to put in - the others required too much space.
Ken

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.canongrange.co.uk>Bed and Breakfast, cathedral Green Wells, Somerset Canon Grange</A>
 
I've got one of the Clarke Pot Bellied stoves, which I have modified rather a lot by welding the castings together & introducing an attempt at a balanced flue.
The air inlet pipe enters the boat at the bottom of the exhaust and has a separate pipe to the back of the grate. I've insulated the exhaust pipe with a wrap around hot water tank - this situation keeps the whole kaboodle warm enough to draw well on a 4ft flue. And hopefully stops the interior filling if the exhaust is accidentally dunked.
I generally burn coal, rubbish and wood. The smoke stinks like a steam train and is very unpleasant to be in (especially if burning tarry coal or rubbish). Soot & smuts do disfigure the cabin top a bit. The cabin, though, is kept pleasantly warm & dry even on the coldest days. However, I would only recommend this setup to those who are determined to use any available fuel and who realistically expect to obtain their fuel for nothing. A big drawback is the low volumetric energy density of wood & rubbish when compared to other fuels (need lots of space).
One day I'm going to make a waste engine oil burner for it (as shown in 'Mother Earth News'), which should broaden the range of available fuels still further to include vegetable oil & diesel as well as engine oil.

I saw in the 'Garlandstone' at Morwellam Key a small coal burning Victorian cast iron fire place in the crew quarters (of the same sort you find in houses). The cabin was maybe 6ft x 8ft. So, it's possible to use anything if you really put your mind to it!

Regards,

Richard.


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Our diesel newport works very well -- it is iddiot proof and you see the flame flickering through the glass, which is very romantic!
I looked at solid fuel, but the hassles of fuel storage, lighting it etc made me spend the extra and get the diesel one.

Also wood and coal are very messy -- lugging coal buckets is a pain, and wood needs to be split dried and stored -- which means lots of wood bits everywhere. I promise you won't regret going diesel!

Lighting is a dream -- a bit of meths and long nosed lighter (don't bother with the tissue paper method they recommend).


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Umm. Not really. I've got a steel hull, so all I did was cut a hole & weld in a 114.3mm x 6.3mm CHS. I got this from my friendly engineering firm's skip as two sub 3ft lengths.

You could fabricate 3.5" section deck iron from 88.8 mm diameter circular hollow section (CHS), but the wall thickness will be a minimum of 3.2mm. The steel for this could come from any steel stockist, and you'll have to keep it painted regularly to stop rusting.

Regards,

Richard.



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I can get charcoal all the time in southern Spain because the locals use it to heat their homes! I have even seen it in Canadian stores in winter.
Barb

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